Senator renews drive to reform military sexual assault prosecutions

WASHINGTON, DC - JULY 30: Sen. Kristen Gillibrand (D-NY) participates in a news conference about new legislation aimed at curbing sexual assults on college and university campuses at the U.S. Capitol Visitors Center July 30, 2014 in Washington, DC. With strong bipartisan support in the Senate, the bill would require schools to make public the result of anonymous surveys about campus assaults and impose significant financial burdens on universities that fail to comply with some of the law's requirements. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Photo: Chip Somodevilla, Staff / Getty Images

WASHINGTON - U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand on Tuesday renewed her drive in Congress to change how the military handles sexual assaults, an offensive backed by an attempted delivery of 100,000 petition signatures to the White House demanding change.

But when assault victims and their advocates arrived Tuesday at the White House, they were not allowed to leave the petitions despite what they believed had been an agreement to accept them. The White House did not immediately respond to an inquiry on the matter.

Gillibrand, D-NY., announced that she would once again pursue her proposal to change how sexual assault prosecutions take place in the armed services by removing key decisions from the chain of command. Her legislation would establish an independent justice system within the military.

A year ago, Gillibrand fell 10 votes short of the 60 needed to break a filibuster, and she fell five votes short in 2014 amid concerns by the military that the change would erode the World War II-era Uniform Code of Military Justice.

Gillibrand said she is hopeful this year in the wake of reports that the Pentagon misled members of Congress when making its case against the legislation. A vote is expected next month as Congress continues work on a new military spending bill.

“I think many senators that we’ve spoken to are concerned, deeply concerned, about the attempt to mislead Congress, deeply concerned that numbers remain unchanged, deeply concerned that our conviction rate has stalled,” she said at a news conference.

The Pentagon for years has been unable to solve its problem with sexual assaults. More than 6,000 assaults were reported last year, a slight dip from the year before, but only 543 cases went to trial. Of those, 413 suspects were convicted.

But victims consistently have said they were retaliated against for reporting assaults, with 60 percent of victims reporting retaliation since 2010.

Overall, the military estimated there were 20,000 assaults two years ago, with most of them not reported by victims to authorities.

Congress in recent years has passed would-be reforms, including provisions to make retaliation against victims a crime and new legal resources for those attacked. But Gillibrand asserted that assaults remain pervasive, as well as reprisals against those who report them.

She directed comments to President Barack Obama, saying she had spoken to him directly.

“What I’m frustrated about is that he is commander in chief, so he can change this rule all by himself,” she said. “We believe the president should show leadership here.”

Gillibrand pointed to an Associated Press investigation last month finding that the Pentagon misled members of Congress in an effort to blunt her legislation. The report cited internal records showing that Defense Department officials portrayed civilian district attorneys as being less willing than senior military officers to punish sex offenders.

Gillibrand has Republican allies for her legislation, among them Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas.

At the news conference, Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, remarked that some in Congress “get intimidated with people coming to the Hill with stars on their shoulders and on their uniforms. There was a lot of evidence given that the military could handle this on their own that was just outright misleading.”

Nonetheless, Gillibrand offered no evidence that she has been persuasive in changing votes.

Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., has been one of Gillibrand’s main adversaries as far as stripping power from the chain of command.

John LaBombard, McCaskill’s communication director, said, “Absolutely no evidence has shown a systemic problem with commanders refusing to move forward with courts-martial, and independent policy experts have rejected the idea of stripping commanders of that power."

Don Christensen, a former Air Force chief prosecutor and now president of Protect Our Defenders, an advocacy group that is promoting more protections for victims, said he believed “a number of senators are on the cusp of voting with us,” but was unable to name them.

After the news conference, a contingent from Protect our Defenders accompanied by two assault victims were rebuffed when trying to deliver the petitions at the White House. A spokesman said they had filled out the necessary security forms but that uniformed Secret Service refused to allow the petitions to be left.

Christensen said he was disappointed. “To get 100,000 people to step up like this shows that the country is concerned and it shows the president and the people who work for him that this issue is not going to go away,” he said.